


Change

by Yossk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 10:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yossk/pseuds/Yossk
Summary: Tony’s not expecting to find anyone awake when he slips into the compound at 5am, heading for the lab and something he can bury his brain in that might make some sense. But Natasha’s up, sat at a table under the window, a mug of coffee between her hands and the early morning sun lighting up her face in shades of pink and orange.“Morning.”





	Change

Tony’s not expecting to find anyone awake when he slips into the compound at 5am, heading for the lab and something he can bury his brain in that might make some sense. But Natasha’s up, sat at a table under the window, a mug of coffee between her hands and the early morning sun lighting up her face in shades of pink and orange.

“Morning.”

She glances up, blinking, as though she’d been lost in thought although he knows she’s been subconsciously tracking his movements since she heard the click of the lock turning three rooms away.

“Morning.” She nods at him, “Bit early for you, isn’t it?” Her head tips slightly, her eyes narrowing. He hates it when she does that, looks at him as though she might be able to see inside him.

He shrugs, “Early bird catches the worm.”

“You’ve never caught the worm in your life, Stark. Unless you were still up from the night before.”

It’s the truth, and he ignores it, “Why are you up?”

“It’s quiet. I like to think.” She takes a sip from the mug, steam rising in front of her face, “There’s more coffee in the pot.”

Tony takes his time to retreat to the kitchen, to select a mug and administer it with copious quantities of sugar. He stirs slowly, watching the vortex form and then settle before he carries it back out. He could carry on walking, straight through to the lab and a computer that deals in 1s and 0s, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. But he pauses, hesitates on the threshold.

“I won’t bite if you sit down, Tony.”

It’s awkward, then, a moment of indecision, a choice between a clumsy twirl in the doorway and point-blank ignoring her, barrelling on towards his intended destination. He knows she won’t take offence, either way. But still. His thoughts are scattered, pinging around his brain without any direction and the idea of attempting to corral them into something productive is becoming less and less appealing by the minute.

Tony turns slowly on his heel and walks back towards the window.

“I’ve never seen you bite.”

She smirks, looking up from her coffee, “Only when necessary. It’s unhygienic.”

He pulls out a chair and sits down. Not opposite. There’s an intenseness about sitting across from someone at a table, looking into their eyes. It’s an invitation to confidence and, worst of all, invasive questions. Instead he takes the chair just around the corner, where he can look straight ahead and his field of view fills with window, her hair a red smudge just at the corner of his vision.

The coffee is sweet and bitter all at once, a little too hot and with not nearly enough caffeine.

“How’s Pepper?”

 He turns to look at her, and she stares straight back at him, expression inscrutable.

“Been taking lessons from Wanda, have you?” He bites it out suddenly, an unwanted edge to his voice.

Natasha shrugs, “Why else would you be here at…” she yawns as she glances at her watch, stretching out against the back of the seat, “…twelve minutes past five on a Tuesday morning?”

“She’s fine.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Natasha has already gotten as close as she ever gets to probing, and so the silence stretches. One minute after another.

Natasha’s gaze drifts away and out of the window. She starts tapping one finger at a time gently against her mug as she thinks something through. Tony watches her hand.

“You don’t need to do that.”

She looks up, and her hand stills, “Do what?”

“The tapping thing.” It grates on him because he knows that it’s not a mindless tick, that she wouldn’t do it if she were sat here alone. She’s decided to do it, to signal to him that she’s not waiting for a response, that she’s moved on to think about something else. She still presents him with what she thinks he wants to see.

Natasha’s shrug is almost imperceptible, but she stops, both hands wrapped around the mug and perfectly still. The cogs are still whirring in her silent mind, laying out mission plans or deciding what to make for dinner, or whatever it is that she thinks about in the quiet of the early morning.

A squirrel runs across the lawn outside, and Tony watches it until it disappears out of sight behind the trees. He casts around for something else to hold his attention. His foot starts tapping agitatedly.

“She left.”

It bursts from him quite suddenly. The silence was too big, too wide. And maybe he wants to shock her, wants to make her awkward.

Natasha barely reacts, “I’m sorry, Tony”

“That’s it?”

She turns to look at him, eyes faintly bemused and forehead creased in a frown, “What else did you want?”

“Don’t you want to know the details? The whole sordid tale?” He pushes the mug away from him, a few inches across the table, “Don’t you want to say ‘I told you so’?”

“No.” She shakes her head, her brow slightly furrowed, and then looks away again, out through the window where the sky is slowly turning to a clear cerulean blue, and says nothing more.

Tony knows what she’s doing, how, even in her seeming passivity, she’s controlling the conversation, drawing him out. But _damn it_ she’s good at it. He looks at his watch, lets one minute tick by and then another before the silence starts to eat at him.

“I thought I could do it for her, you know? I thought I could stop.” His voice has gotten a little ragged, overly-loud and harsh-sounding to his own ears.

Natasha sighs and sets her mug down slowly, leaning back in her chair and seeming to resign herself to engaging properly in the conversation.

“You can’t change for someone else. It doesn’t stick.”

“Know that for a fact, do you?”

The corner of her mouth lifts slightly, “I might have some experience.”

Tony’s silent for a few moments, anger and resentment and guilt forming an unpleasant mixture in his stomach. He waits and he holds it in, but it’s too big for him, too much.

“At least she didn’t steal a quinjet to get away from me.”

He expects Natasha to stiffen, to lash out, expects to feel the terrifying coolness of her anger. Expects, possibly, a hand around his throat. But instead, she laughs. A little bitterly, with sadness around the edges. But still, she laughs. “Well, you didn’t push Pepper down a ravine and force her to turn into her worst nightmare.”

Her voice is soft, and it conjures an image in his mind. The one he thought he had chased from his nightmares, of Pepper and an oil rig and her hand sliding past his. Of her rise from the ashes, glorious and terrible and deadly. Tony deflates, suddenly.

“Maybe I did.”

Natasha looks up, and her expression softens a fraction, “But that’s not why she left.”

“No.”

“So.” She’s finally turned away from the window, and is looking directly at him, the edge of a challenge in her gaze, “The question remains, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well,” He coughs, suddenly awkward, and he turns to watch a bird fly by past the window, spreading its wings and soaring away into the distance, “I _was_ thinking of burying myself in the lab for about a fortnight. But I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s not a healthy way to process my emotions.”

Natasha think for a moment, and then sighs. “It’s not but…” She shrugs, “It’s you.”

Tony’s eyebrows furrow, “And… that’s a good thing…?” She shakes her head, smiling, “A bad thing…?”

“No. Look, I’m the last person to be giving relationship advice, but… you’ve already proven you won’t change.” She doesn’t say _can’t_ , but it’s as good as. Tony grips his mug between his hands, and glances down at the now-cold coffee, “It’s Pepper’s turn to decide. Do the good bits outweigh the bad? She knows who you are.”

He grimaces, “We’re doomed.”

She shrugs, “Maybe.”

He finishes his coffee in silence, and then stands up purposefully, “Well, off I go. See you in a fortnight.”

“I’ll get someone to drop some food in every now and then.”

“No dairy. It makes me gassy.”

He’s nearly on the threshold when she turns to call after him.

“Tony…”

“What?”

Her lip quirks into a half-smile, “No killer robots this time, ok?”

He shakes his head and continues out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a weird little scene I've had sat on my hard-drive for a while, waiting for an ending. Post-Infinity War, I've been thinking about the reasons Pepper left Tony, and how / why she came back. I think that relationships are never going to work if either party is waiting for change. Pepper left Tony because he said he was going to stop making suits, stop being Iron Man, and he didn't. I think that was right, and the best thing she could have done for herself. I hope she came back because she's accepted that that's a part of who he is and has, on balance, decided it's worth it.


End file.
